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Stephanie Shea's avatar

This is exhausting! I know a woman that has a transkid who was getting puberty blockers from a foreign country without her parents permission after they told her no. When the parents found out they finally took her to a doctor to get her what she needed. If the courts take away gender affirming care, people will find ways to get this care that may not be as safe as what we have here. It is so much an attack on women as they never come after transmen. Curious. There are roughly 500 trans kids between 12-17 in Montana as per google. The population of Montana is roughly 1.133 million. You would think they could come up with laws to pass to support the 1.133 million people instead of picking on 500 kids.

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Brittany's avatar

Yeah it is disgusting and is hurting people's lives.

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HappyCamper's avatar

These people that interfere with parental rights are sick fu$&s.

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Shirley Gauthier she/her's avatar

When legislators decided to over ride parents and physicians and yet get elected it is fu$&s.

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VEL's avatar

So if a cis girl wants to wear jeans... her parents can be charged with child abuse for "altering her appearance" to match something different than her "biological sex"?

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

That's the level of intellectual functioning of transmisic people, just like the immigrant-haters who get the border patrol to harass legal residents and citizens with darker colored skin.

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Myra Mitchell's avatar

When my egg cracked, I used "Transmisia" instead of "Transphobia" because of an encounter I had early on: it wasn't fear, it was hatred. I was browbeaten to use "transphobia" because "it's more relatable to the public." I do now, but I feel it's disingenuous.

You are the first person in almost 7 years to use that word/suffix. Am I just hanging out with the wrong online crowds?

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

I think it has just not spread very much; people haven't heard of it. I actually looked for it, because in German (which I'm restoring my previous fluency in) on has a simple word "Transfeindtlichkeit," literally "transenmity." I didn't think that would fly very far 😏, so looked for "Greek suffix meaning hatred," and found the "-misic" or "-misia."

I completely agree with your original view. In an armchair psychologist mode one may conclude that the hatred evinced by someone like Nancy Mace comes from some denied fear, but hate is what we're objectively seeing.

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Samantha Thomas's avatar

It depends on how much they like the way she looks in those jeans. It’s all subjective. They are literally trying to manage aesthetics. If they think a (cis) girl looks sexy in jeans, they are okay with that. If they think a transwoman looks sexy in jeans, they freak, because they are afraid it means something about them. (Hence transphobia.)

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Matthew Walker's avatar

Give it time. It really does feel like they want to bring us back to the time when women genuinely weren't allowed to wear pants. Amongst other ways they want us to backslide. If burkas weren't associated with Islam I do believe we would see Republicans demanding women wear them.

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Sara Sullivan's avatar

What is wrong with this guy? Doesn’t he have anything better to do than target a small minority of vulnerable kids? Is he secretly trans ? This feels like when right wing Christian men go on homophobic rants and turn out to be gay themselves.

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Myra Mitchell's avatar

It'd be easier to enumerate what is right... Fin!

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Robin Whitaker's avatar

I'm just over here appreciating Gianforeskin

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Dee E Dressler's avatar

The irony is heartbreaking. My love for my non-binary child is complete. Do I miss the future I once envisioned of a daughter who would bring my grandkids into this world? Kinda. But they will find other ways to create family, if that is what they wish. To think that a law maker would try to tell me I don't love them and, indeed, I am abusing them for allowing them to find there own way in their journey... Well, I feel sorry for his children who may have lost their way listening to his controling rants. Talk about abuse!

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TransFormAndFunction's avatar

A lot of people are saying we should actually look to the past to find effective ways to deal with Nazis

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

Yes, do; but also consider the differences. In those times in Germany there was *real* economic pain (far, far, different from the price of eggs rising by 50% - inflation was in the billions of % per year), and many other factors. Today, social media and the lack of any consistent educational standards across the country foster incomprehensible ignorance of facts (that very word is hardly more than an epithet now; either side can - and does say "get your facts straight", while disagreeing on the facts as if they were wild opinions.

I don't think we'll do anything about the true neo-fascists, short of that shooting match. But their political wins were won by economic ignorance more than anything else, and total lack of even the slightest comprehension of what it is like to be LGBTQ+. There is just no "silver bullet" available, but we must fight with the tools we have.

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TransFormAndFunction's avatar

There are certainly a lot of differences, but the old Nazi-removal methods still have the same effect.

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

Honestly, my emotions don't conflict with yours, but the reality is that those methods involved a war in which several hundred thousand Americans died. I'd like to hope that we don't get to that.

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Michelle Belmont's avatar

To the legislators who want to harm (and lets be honest here, indirectly murder) trans kids for their own sick, twisted gains, I give the words of the immortal David Lynch: "Fix your hearts or die!"

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Stephanie Shea's avatar

Another question. Is there any organization that could put billboards up in these states showing how many kids the lawmakers are wasting their time coming after when they are but a drop in the bucket of the population? Maybe to show the residents how many people and real issues they aren't fighting for?

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Corin Goodwin's avatar

That's a great idea. If corporate media won't talk about it maybe billboards will do the trick.

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Stephanie Shea's avatar

I like the idea because people will just see it when they drive by. We don't need to hope they will watch a specific news source or search out the info themselves.

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Shirley Gauthier she/her's avatar

I wish I could gather a couple hundred women. We could go stand in line at the men's room at some red state capitol while in session. So frustrated and feeling so helpless. I can't count the times I have used the men's room because the line at the women's was so friggen long. I wish everyone could live in a safe state like Oregon.

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Layne Alvarez's avatar

Oh my god, this is horrifying

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Jayna Sheats's avatar

Paraphrasing Barack Obama's campaign line "Don't boo, vote," we have to have serious opposition. Of course it's not voting, whose time is past for now (and now may be effectively forever if we don't act). Outreach to people who are not transmisic like the bill's author, but think trans people are "misguided" (or any similar idea) is critical. They exist, even if not in large numbers. Let's try to influence those fence-sitters in the Montana legislature, and offer real information on a platform that isn't maga-controlled (like Substack!). We can all contribute something.

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Corin Goodwin's avatar

F*ck these people. They need a new hobby that doesn't involve telling other people who they should be or how they should live.

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Keith Aron's avatar

No matter how hard I try, I fail to comprehend how parental love and support of trans kids can be construed as abuse. How emotional attunement can be construed as abuse. How day can be called night and up can be called down. It's absolutely confounding, among other things. To quote T.S. Eliot, "Men tighten the knot of confusion into perfect misunderstanding."

Thank you, as always, for your careful, care-full reporting. 🏳️‍⚧️ ⚧️🩵🩷🤍

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Matthew Walker's avatar

Having spoken to some right wing people, they don't believe trans kids can know that they're trans. They think that a trans kid is the result of adults confusing the kid or pushing them into being trans. It's ridiculous, we have more than enough stories from trans people saying they knew they were trans as literal children. But if you're a bigot you wouldn't listen to trans adults or much of anything that goes against your biases.

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Joan the Dork's avatar

Murderers.

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Anne Harris's avatar

I have been serving transgendered youth and adults for over thirty years. I never thought as a licensed mental health provider (LCPC) that I would have a deep fear for practicing my profession and following professional standards. I am a member in good standing with WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health), The American Counseling Association (SAIGE division), The Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA), The Montana Sex Offender Treatment Association, and several others. I've practiced in Montana for over 49 years. Puting it simply, gender affirming counseling does not impose ideology or require medical interventions for minors, or adults. We educate and inform, help clarify all the dimensions of an emerging (youth) identity, and support individual youth and adults to make informed decisions. I agree with Rep

Zooey Zephyr that laws that restrict care do only harm and limit the well researched treatments that relieve pain, confusion, suffering, and yes may directly contribute to self harm and suicide.

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